At seventy years of age, with his career on the downswing, legendary director Akira Kurosawa turned to the help of George Lucas and Francis Ford Coppola, who served as producers on Kurosawa's epic Kagemusha. At that point in time, Kagemusha was the most expensive film ever to be made in Japan. The film is set in late sixteenth-century Japan, where three clans are battling for dominance and control of the land. When Lord Shingen of the Takeda clan is mortally wounded and sure to die, he orders that his death be kept a secret in order to preserve stability, and that his shadow warrior (Kagemusha) take his place. Shingen's doppleganger is a low-level thief, spared his life because of his uncanny resemblance to Shingen. However, despite the resemblence, fate runs its course, climaxing in a bloody battlefield finale.

A modest box office hit in 2004, the comic-based drama Umizaru found a second life as a television drama a year later. Thanks to the television drama's popularity, the series' second feature film Limit of Love Umizaru (a.k.a. Umizaru 2: Test of Trust) became the highest-grossing live-action film of 2006. Four years later, the series - which highlights the courage and hard work of rescue divers - delivers its final and biggest chapter with The Last Message. The series' original cast and crew - stars Ito Hideaki, Kato Ai, Sato Ryuta, plus director Hasumi Eiichiro and scriptwriter Yasushi Fukada - all return to give the hugely successful series a memorable farewell to its fans. As one of the first Japanese films to be converted to 3D theatrical exhibition, The Last Message once again attracted enough audiences to become the highest-grossing live-action film of the year, making it the best possible way for the series to end.

After the passenger ferry disaster in Limit of Love, Daisuke (Ito Hideaki) has since been promoted to captain of his own rescue divers team, married to long-time girlfriend Kanna (Kato Ai), and a happy father to a newborn baby. However, Kanna begins to resent Daisuke's workaholic lifestyle, causing him to considering quitting the coast guards to save his family. At this time, oil starts spilling under an offshore oil platform co-developed by Japan, China, and Russia. During the rescue effort, an explosion causes Daisuke and several others to be trapped in the sinking platform. With a powerful typhoon approaching, the coast guards will have to fight time, forces of nature, and government bureaucrats to get Daisuke and the others home safely.